


Bittersweet

by Occula



Category: U2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 00:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12243297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Occula/pseuds/Occula
Summary: Sometimes things work out, even when they don't work out.





	Bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ Sept. 25, 2003.

It made sense to me at the time.

I’d tried so many things, but they really all came down to patience, understanding, and forgiveness.

I tried to be patient when Adam began to prefer drinking above all other activities. I understood when he wound up in bed with someone else. I forgave him again and again for so many things, so many times.

What I couldn’t understand or overlook was his growing craving for self-destruction. I hate jargon like this, but I began to wonder whether I was ‘enabling’ his behavior.

I thought about that long and hard.

Then I dumped him.

I didn’t intend it as a breakup proper. I told him so, as best you can explain something to a person you’re angering and hurting. A temporary break, a bit of distance, some breathing space, time to think things out, get some control.

It was horribly difficult to be the cruel one, to feel I was being outright controlling and manipulative.

Then he hit bottom, in a spectacular and very public fashion. Afterward, he wouldn’t let me back in, wouldn’t let me … _anything_. It was Larry to whom he turned, Larry who stepped in to help him pick up the pieces. When Larry told us that they’d both be going to New York –

I’d wanted to save him. Larry was there for him while he saved himself. That’s why Larry was better for him than I was.

I told Bono what I’d done. Broke down. Wept in his arms all that awful afternoon and confessed everything.

Bono was the strength I needed. He understood I’d acted from love and concern, that I hadn’t meant to hurt Adam but to help him. He understood how awful it was for me now that it was over.

He held me until I was nearly asleep. He soothed me and calmed me with his hands, and then with his mouth and body. I hadn’t expected it, but I was too weak and heartsick to protest. It was his turn to break down, to confess. He told me he’d wanted me nearly as long as he’d known me. That somewhere along the way he’d fallen in love with me. That he wanted to heal me, love me, fill the ache in my heart if he could.

I let him. I let him try, and he succeeded.

I’d been with one man in my life. Adam was a little taller than I, beautiful and muscular, but slender, like a swimmer. His body was deliciously smooth, unlike my own. He was experienced, world-wise, and utterly uninhibited. No body shyness, no hesitation to try something new or twist himself into any physical position he could think of. Yet, emotionally, he could be so frail, so damned vulnerable.

I don’t want to say Adam was “passive,” because he was the most intense, active participant in sex that one can imagine. I don’t want to describe myself as “top,” because that’s not strictly accurate either. The truth is simply that it was always I who penetrated him and never the other way. He’d been around, he knew what he preferred, and that’s just how it worked for us, for our temperaments.

Bono was a different person; with him, everything was different, kisses, smells, sounds, tastes. He was like a burly man in a small body; he just seemed big, _felt_ big. He was more masculine, less fragile than I was accustomed to. He made me feel safe and cherished. I came to rely on resting my head on his broad chest and letting my worries dissolve.

When it came down to it, he was surprised to learn that I’d never been made love _to_ , not in the way that I’d made love to Adam. That’s what Bono wanted, he wanted to be the one who … _did_ , and it seemed right. At first, I kept waiting for a disagreement that didn’t come. I walked on eggshells unnecessarily until he called me on it and helped me learn to break the habit. He and I were already so compatible. We knew each other so thoroughly and were used to dealing with one another’s temperaments.

By the time Adam and Larry came back, obviously wrapped up in one another, Bono and I had established something, something tenuous at first, but strong. Something with roots and branches and leaves.

I didn’t want things back the way they were. Adam had come so far, accomplished so much, with a partner who obviously knew how to support him and deal with him. Their relationship was clearly much healthier than mine had been with him.

More than anything, I was just disappointed in myself for failing where Adam and Larry together had succeeded.

Yes, I was happy with Bono. Yes, Bono was very right for me in so many ways. But there’s plenty of room in the human heart, and mine would always have a small, special place that was Adam’s.


End file.
